Mark Bell's Power Project - Power Project EP. 101 - Prequel to Digging for Goals

Episode Date: August 27, 2018

Checking in with everyone to talk about Mark Bell's progress as he sits two weeks out from his first bodybuilding show. We had a listener ask about how to set goals so instead of responding with a quick answer, we decided to record a whole podcast for it. Unfortunately, we went off on a tangent and talked about everything except that question so this is the Prequel to Digging for Goals. Rewatch the live stream: https://youtu.be/6dTG05B1gDg ➢SHOP NOW: https://markbellslingshot.com/ Enter Discount code, "POWERPROJECT" at checkout and receive 15% off all Sling Shots ➢Subscribe Rate & Review on iTunes at: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/mark-bells-power-project/id1341346059?mt=2 ➢Listen on Stitcher Here: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/mark-bells-power-project?refid=stpr ➢Listen on Google Play here: https://play.google.com/music/m/Izf6a3gudzyn66kf364qx34cctq?t=Mark_Bells_Power_Project ➢Listen on SoundCloud Here: https://soundcloud.com/markbellspowerproject FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell ➢ Snapchat: marksmellybell Follow The Power Project Podcast ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/MarkBellsPowerProject Podcast Produced by Andrew Zaragoza ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamandrewz

what you got on your mind i got lots of stuff raging and over here um rage yeah i got lots of shit going on um i just shot a video in the car uh i'm gonna shoot a video every day and just throw them up online old school style uh this is the power project that's what you're listening to right now but the Power Project started with my phone and started with me filming videos all over Davis and all over Sacramento. Part of that was to empower myself. Part of that was to learn. And part of that was to try to come out of a shell. I didn't like making those videos.

I didn't like having to shoot them while other people are walking by me, uh, laughing or why other people think that I was videoing them, you know, they'd be waving or doing whatever. Um, and then as it grew, you know, sometimes it was fun because sometimes people would stop and listen and it'd be like, oh shit, it's Mark Bell. He's doing a power project. So after a while it became fun, but it was But it was also irritating because as technology got better, as you know, Andrew, as technology gets better, it gets worse. Like it messes things up. It's supposed to make everything better and make everything cleaner. Andrew, for example, might go and get like the latest camera and be like, oh my God, this is so sick.

Then he hooks in 15 pictures that he took of a vacation that he had with his family or something and realizes it explodes his entire computer because the megapixels or whatever are now off the charts. And whatever computer you have access to doesn't have the capability. It's not even out yet. Yeah. Right. It's sort even out yet. Yeah. Right. It's sort of like keeping up with the Joneses, but like through technology. Yeah, that absolutely happens. Yeah. It happens all the time. And what happened to me with the power project and, you know, I have over 2000 videos on super training. Oh, six. Um, I have more videos and fitness than anybody. I think I have more videos on the internet, uh, than anyone.

That's a material expert period. I think I have more, uh, videos than anybody. Um, it just, uh, in general,

I mean, there's, there's probably three or 4,000 videos between stuff that we've done here, stuff other people have done for me. Uh, Jim McD's old channel, some of the stuff we did at supertraining.tv. And I mean, the list goes on and on and the old, um, the, uh, uh, the old podcast and things like that. I mean, it's just, there's overwhelming amount of information,

but some of the things I wanted to get to today and wanted to talk to today, um, on to speak upon were, uh, some of these, you know, some of these principles, uh, that I think, um, people, people might, people might think that you're born with and, uh, you definitely, we're all are born with different skill sets. And, uh, when someone's born to, uh, when someone's, when someone's born and they are 25% taller than everybody else in their class, and they, they run 50% faster than everybody in their class. And they, you know, they have some of these skills and it's like, Oh wow. Well, this guy, you know, probably has all the makings of, uh, becoming a

basketball player, becoming a great athlete. Um, a young kid gets ahold of a guitar and he's five and for whatever reason, it just makes sense to him. And he figures out how to start playing it. Um, for some reason, a lot of these things are easy for people to accept and they'll see it and they'll say, Oh, wow. You know, Johnny, he draws, you know, way better than I can draw. Like the teacher asked to draw a tree. Everybody in class drew a tree. Um, my tree doesn't resemble anything that even looks like a tree, but this other kid, you know, made this beautiful, not only tree, but then there's a farmhouse in the background. There's horse like right and so sometimes people are kind of born

with these these skills right now just because you're not born with some of these skills or just because you don't have it right away doesn't mean that if you're not passionate and excited about it it doesn't mean that it can't turn into something for you it doesn't mean that it can't be built upon. Character is something that is a worked upon thing. It's a worked upon, your character is a forced will. You're forcing yourself to go to places that you normally don't want to go to when you don't normally want to do them. And when you start doing that repeatedly and start doing it over and over again, the rewards become so powerful that it outweighs everything else. And so, for example, I got a new training partner as of late. My boy, my boy, Andrew over here.

Now, Andrew was no schlep when he came in here. He already had a great skill set when it came to photography. He already had a great personality. Everybody got along with him right away. He's a humble guy. He's a smart guy. The kind of guy who's going to like, he might say, you know, I'm not too sure about that, but I'll work on that and I'll figure it out.

Like I actually, you know, he'll sometimes say, you know, Mark, I'm glad you actually gave that to me because I, I want to learn more about that. You know, you're not the kind of guy who's like, well, the problem with that is anyone can do that. Right. Anyone could sit there and, and, you know, point out the holes that are in your ship. Right. But how do we figure out how to patch them up? How do we figure out how to keep moving forward? But since Andrew has been training with me, I've noticed some huge changes. And obviously like the first change that you see is you start to see some changes in the body type, body type starts to change, start to get a little leaner, start to add muscle mass. And I've heard time and time again, people in the gym complimenting you.

start to add muscle mass. And I've heard time and time again, people in the gym complimenting you. Um, another obvious change is the weight on the bar, the weight on the bar has changed. Um, we'll talk about the bench in a second, but the weight on the bar has changed, uh, drastically on a lot of different movements. I mean, some movements, um, you know, using fives and tens and things like that. And then now you're using like forties and fifties and seventies on the incline the other day, you know? Yeah. It's been a lot of fun, man. I can't thank you enough for, you know, just kind of, I mean, you're always going to teach me something. You're always going to coach me up.

But just like recently with, you know, you have, you know, the bodybuilding show on your mind, you have the business on your mind, and then it's like adding someone else to, you know, the stack of things, and you're just like, yeah, let's do it. Let's go. And then you even helped me with my diet plan, which has been really cool too. But yeah, you're absolutely right. Like the weight on the bar has been going up. The weight just on my body as a whole has been going up, which has been the biggest struggle of my whole life is like maintaining weight. Cause it's always just, uh, like I tell people, like if I just played video games and ate Doritos all day long, I would shrink down to like 160, like without even, you know, without, without trying.

And well, and there's not a lot of people that would look very good, you know, given that plan either, you know, like they might just be fat, you know, for you, you might just be skinny or whatever. Yeah. Like, oh, I wish I had that problem. It's like, well, no, like, you know, at the end of the day, we're all men and well, not everybody, but like as a dude, you don't want to be standing next to your girl and have another bigger guy just overlook you and just stare at your girl and be like ah he doesn't really matter because he's a little scrawny guy like if i wanted that chick i can just go get her yeah they're probably not even really together it's probably like his brother probably yeah they're they're he's in the friend zone yeah you know so like even just kind of looks like a pussy yeah you know just something like that like it's uh that was always on my mind when i was really skinny. Um, and you know, it's, it feels cool to, you know, receive some compliments and be like, well, what's going on over here? You know, like it feels great. There's some words, you know, in English language that can really describe things for a lot of people. And, um, the two words that stand out to me are significant.

Everybody wants to be significant. Yeah. You know, there's a, there's a, there's a fucking song from Disturbed called Be Significant. And it's a sick ass song, you know. Being significant is a really important thing. Being substantial is a really important thing. Um, being substantial is a really important thing. Uh, this, this is a good practice for everybody listening to the show. Um, people, people just need, people need to do a lot better job of just loving each other. I know it's a funny message coming from, you know, uh, you know,

somebody, uh, like myself that has been, uh, you know, kind of taking his aggressions out on lifting for so many years, and you see some of the big, quote-unquote, tough things. I wouldn't even really ever consider myself to be tough. I definitely never was tough. If I have portrayed any sort of toughness, it has been through consistency and it has been through gritting my teeth and going through stuff that is hard and difficult. However, it's also important to keep in mind that I'm not, I'm not, I'm not at, I'm not at war, you know, I'm not, I'm not carrying my buddy's body, uh, through, through a ward, a war laden, uh, uh, city, you know, I, I, I'm, I'm lifting weights and, uh, I have the luxury to lift weights because of the, uh, things that were set forth in this country a long time ago. And I feel very privileged.

So sometimes we get carried away with a lot of this stuff like, oh, man, you're a badass. I look, man, I'll take any compliment I can get. And I appreciate what you're saying. if again, if anything stands out, it's the heavy dose to consistency that I've been serving up to everybody for a long time, because I'm not going to miss, I'm not going to miss workouts. Um, I'm not going to miss my sleep. I'm not going to miss my food. Um, I'm going to do these things that I feel are important to me so that I can feel substantial, so I can feel significant to, because to me, I don't feel my cup is filled up enough if I don't follow through with these things. And so I don't want to always kind of look at it and be like, oh, you know, I mean,

even last night, I literally said this to myself before I went to bed. I was like, to myself before I went to bed, I was like, did I do everything today that I needed to do? Did I get everything done the way that I needed to get it done? Did I execute on everything the way that I needed to execute it, uh, to the best of my knowledge to get better? And the answer was like only sort of, and it was, it was just some circumstances that were out of my hands yesterday that i couldn't uh i shouldn't say couldn't because i could have um uh but i had to handle things a little differently i went to go to the gym early in the morning and i forgot that the gym is not open till seven uh local gym near my house and uh so instead of going on the stair master i went for a walk with

my dad, which my dad's 70. So walking with my dad at 70 years old is a way different form of exercise than me getting on the step mill. Uh, however we did walk, you know, we walked pretty good. We walked for like two hours. Yeah. Um, and then I got my training in here and, uh, I also, before I even met with my dad that morning, I got a little bit of cardio in at my house, just going on the treadmill. But again, what I'm supposed to do is I'm supposed to do at this point, cause there's only 13 more days until my bodybuilding show. I'm supposed to do 90 minutes of the stair of the stair master. And so did I do everything that I needed to do for the day?

Sort of. Right. Yeah. And what, what a shitty way to conclude your day. Uh, regardless of, uh, regardless of how it went. I mean, I, I can also look at the other end and say, you know what? That was a wonderful time with my dad. We had some great discussion.

It's great for him to get outside and walk. I would not replace that with a Stairmaster session under any circumstances, whether it makes a different odd stage or not. You know, like that was important and it was cool. But those, you have to be hard on yourself when it comes to those things. And it's also okay to be reasonable. It's also okay to be rational. One of the things that makes us

human beings is being rational. Um, animals are irrational and animals hungry, and it goes and bites the face off of something else because it needs to eat uh human beings we may want to kick somebody's ass but we'll think about it a little bit more and go you know what that doesn't actually make sense there's legal ramifications all that i don't really you know for a lot of some people do like to hurt people i guess but uh for a lot of people that would be a problem like i i really i don't like the guy and I do hope he gets fucking run over by a bus in my mind that works out nicely, but I don't want to see any harm happening. But I don't, I don't want to, I do want to punch him.

It works out nice in my head, but I, you know, I don't want the, you know, the impact of, of hurting my hand, uh, impact of potentially hurting him for a long period of time, the impact of him pulling out a knife and now changing the scenario around, you know, and, uh, rationality to it and say, you know what? I didn't quite get all the things that I wanted to get done towards my goal, but there was other things that weren't associated with that particular goal that had to be done as well. I had to spend time with my daughter yesterday. That was, you know, that, that was number one, really, even though I have these separate, you know, individual goals that I want to spend time with my daughter yesterday. That was, you know, that, that was number one, really, even though I have these separate, you know, individual goals that I want to achieve.

Um, that other goal, even though it, it did, uh, it did pull away from what I needed to do. It also had to get done and had to get done that day. I can't, I can't outsource. I can't be, you know, call my neighbor and be like, Hey bro, hang out with my daughter for me. Yeah. Because I got to go hit up some curls. Yeah, that would have been awful. And then I think also the, I mean, you're being rational. You're saying that, you know, hanging out with your dad was awesome. But I think the other, like the flip side of being okay with your day, like, okay, I didn't get the cardio in I needed, but I got some.

So that's a win. I didn't train as hard as I did. So that's win you know looking at my day i did pretty damn good right today's a win yeah yeah you know that can be a problem too because you're not being rational about like well yeah it's a win but i should have gotten more done today yeah right i guess it's also uh just uh it's important to just understand, every day is not going to be a 10. Yeah. It's probably not, it's probably not reasonable. Right.

That's another word that I really like a lot. Like, um, is that reasonable? Um, what if every day could just be a seven, you know, or even a six and a half every day could be a seven. I'm not talking about your effort. I'm just talking about, I'm talking about combination of things, effort, you being able to do all the things that you wanted to do on top of all the things that you need to do.

Yeah. Cause there's big differences between all those things, your obligations. Um, you can't be such a maniac about things that you're a dick, you know? Um, and this happens, this happens to really high level athletes happens to bodybuilders and professional athletes where, you know, they come home from their job and they're home, but they're not really there. And I, I, I, you know, I've been there, I've been there a lot of times, been there before where I'm like, you know, I just, uh, am, am zoned out, you know, and, uh, something I think is really important,

uh, is that we always save something. Um, I think a lot of us are afraid to save something. A lot of us are afraid to leave a little bit, but if you think about it in terms of your training and this, you experienced this the other day, Andrew, with your, um, your squats, Andrew went all in on the set of squats. He went crazy and he did like, you know, 20 something reps and he just made himself, you know, super, super white. And I was like, man, he really pushed it. And then from there, you know, the rest of the workout, it was hard to get through the rest of the workout. Um, and sometimes you can go so far with that that you make yourself sick yeah and i'm not even talking about sick for the day i'm talking about sick for like a few weeks

you went so hard that day that you negatively impacted your immune system which will negatively impact your sleep which will negatively in which will allow uh you know some sort of illness to come in yeah and you're sick for two weeks. Yeah. That would fuck that. Yeah. And then everything's, everything's really, really, um, you know, sidetracked and, uh, and thrown off course from there.

So always, you know, I want to try, I guess I'm trying to clear it up a little bit, but you want your days to be a 10, but they can't be a 10 in terms of your intensity because that candle will burn out. And I've mentioned, you know, Steve Jobs before. He's just an example. But there's millions of examples. And Steve Jobs had he had cancer. And I don't know what the right solution was to. And, you know, no one has like a quote unquote cure for cancer.

And, uh, you know, no one has like a quote unquote cure for cancer. However, do I think that Steve jobs, you know, selling a hundred, 400, uh, you know, billion dollars worth of, uh, iPhones, uh, you know, led to an early death apps a hundred percent. I would associate that more so than with camp than even cancer. Something else would have probably killed his ass because, uh, how can one person handle that much right stress and responsibility you know he's one he was i mean there's never been anybody like him before or since i mean so what a huge burden that is yeah and then one thing i wanted to bring up um kind of like uh i'm calling it time under tension but that just means uh getting here early to train with you uh doing a

photo shoot right after you know hitting up a meeting and being coherent and then getting sleep and recovery and hanging out with my family uh if i was to try to do that like day one i probably would have collapsed and failed miserably and never came back to work out with you again but with like each reps it rep and set across the board it's getting better i know where i need to improve and i know where i you know can kind of at least uh get get yeah just get better at in general which is mainly like the the stuff at home but uh what i'm trying to get at is like if you're looking at this and you're like saying like shit dude i have a family i don't have enough time i don't have this i don't have that the more you do it the easier it gets um and that's

something i learned from you yeah you know uh the uh fuck what's your saying uh the more you can handle the more you will handle or something like that. Yeah. The more, the, you know, I always say do more, be more. Yeah. The more that you can do, the more you can handle. Yeah. You know, it's just, uh, and, um, that, I mean, it even goes down to your food. Yeah. You and I were talking about food the other day and I was, and, um, you're like, yeah, I'm kind of concerned if I'm going to up the protein. I'm going to blow out my asshole. Which has happened.

It happens anyways. I'll say, yeah, your butthole is going to get blown out. There's definitely going to be some problems. We need to get some baby wipes. We need to figure these things out together. Maybe I need to help you back there a little bit. Get a detachable shower head. If you can spot me, that'd be cool you know get get it going right yeah i gotta make

sure you're clean back there i don't want to be working out with a dirty motherfucker you know what i mean bad yeah but uh you know on a more on a more serious note when you're starting to think about some of these things okay man i just listened to rhino i just listened to stan efforting i want to be big and strong like him or yeah i just listening to the mountain i just listened to brian shaw and these guys eat a lot well don't go from eating uh 2 000 calories a day and feeling like you're restricted uh most of the time to all of a sudden eating 8 000 yeah and also you know if you're a big boy and you're you're enjoying your food and stuff and you want to start to you're like oh man mark talks about the war on carbs and this guy talks

about this diet not that you don't have to always uh you know jump off the diving board you can go into the kiddie side of the pool there and get your toes wet and check the temperature of everything like do i am i even going to like this? You know, before you go jumping in a deep end and then realize that you can't even swim, you know, put, put those toes in there and kind of check it out. Don't really worry about it too much. You are going to get more into it as you move forward. Just make sure that you're constantly working towards that.

Cause I think some people have a tendency, uh, to kind of stop and they'll just say, I feel better on this side of the pool. I'm not even going to bother to learn how to swim. I'm just going to be right. I'm going to stay where it's comfortable. I'm just going to be over here. And then they stay there forever. So that's not what I'm talking about. But, um, even when it comes to your food, the more that you can, the more that you can the more that you work on being able to handle more food the the easier it is to absorb that food yeah if you just do it out of nowhere your stomach's gonna be like holy cow what did you do to me we're gonna be in a lot of trouble we're gonna spend a lot of time on a toilet here yeah and so those are things that you want to think about and you're just like

okay i've never eaten six meals before. Maybe I should start out with five or maybe I should start out with four. Maybe I should take the same amount of food that I was eating and just split it up into six or seven meals. That was recommended to us by our boy, Doug. Remember that? Yeah. And I've been trying that. What usually happens is I'll just forget and not measure it correctly or whatever.

that uh what usually happens is i'll just forget and you know not measure it correctly or whatever but yeah splitting up a normal meal into two is a huge help especially when it's something like uh like just pretty bare bones chicken or bare breast chicken i don't know how you can say that but uh it just makes it a lot easier to wolf down half versus the whole thing because then by the end of it you're actually like fatigued from eating yeah yeah your jaw and stuff gets to be terrible yeah i mean you can even do there's all kinds of stuff you can do you can kind of trick yourself into starting to figure out how you know um you could figure out ways of trying to make it a little bit a little bit of fun you know every 90 minutes you eat it's like that's kind of that's kind of exciting that's a cool thing to do it's kind of exciting like you know i'm gonna eat eight or nine times a day just to, just to

feel it. You're not trying to be a pig. You're not, you're not at Chipotle the whole day. You're not at a buffet, you know, just getting up every 90 minutes. That would be a bad idea. Yeah, it would be a really bad idea. And as much as we sit here and try to preach about, you know, nutrition and your sleep and stuff, um, the reason why I preach about it so much is because I've been on the other side, right? I know what that side's like. And I know, um, but let's just make no mistake about it. And let's always just point out the fact that the sleep is the building block of everything else that you do. The sleep is the building block of everything else that you do. The sleep is the building block of everything else that you do. It doesn't matter what you're doing.

It doesn't matter if you're a teacher. It doesn't matter if you're a scientist. It doesn't matter if you're the president of the United States. It doesn't matter who you are. You're going to require a certain amount of sleep. And that's you, you specifically. I know that Donald Trump has touted that he sleeps like four or five hours. Let's just face it.

Like I, Donald Trump, I actually liked Donald Trump. I think that Donald Trump is fucking out of his mind. I'll agree with everybody on that. But he says outrageous shit all the time. And people, there's a lot of guys that are his age that kind of quote unquote talk out their ass right and uh i think he's definitely one of them so if he says he sleeps four or five hours a night it's probably more of like sending a message of look man i i work really hard and i always have and i always will and i'm gonna ride this out just like this

until the day i die he probably doesn't literally sleep only four or five hours every day if he does there's probably some sort of nap in there there's some other information that he's not uh sharing and he's a billionaire so maybe he's got some sort of special sleep chamber yeah well i mean you can look at it two ways also like uh if you are trying to be ambitious and be a billionaire like well he only sleeps four or five hours a night so i'm gonna be that i'm gonna do that too. And then if you're someone like me who's not necessarily driven by money, I'd be like, he doesn't look like he's jacked and tan.

I don't want to sleep like him. So you can kind of take whatever you want out of what someone else is doing and make it work for yourself. We're in an interesting, I think we're in such a we're in such a cool time you know i think it's i think we're really fortunate to be like living you know when we're living what a weird fucking thing to say because we don't know anything else anyway right but um this is a cool time you know i people want to shit on new generations every time there's a new generation always as soon as a new generation is old enough to start making decisions and they start to, uh, get into positions of power.

And everyone's like, ah, these, uh, you know, baby boomers or whatever, whatever the, you know, whatever the different names, I don't even know the different names. I know millennials, cause that's what everyone talks about. But like, um, it's just, it's amazing. People are so against whatever's new or whatever's different and they're like oh the millennials the millennials they didn't struggle as hard as we did yeah well and what a weird statement yeah maybe they're struggling a lot worse um maybe the convenience of having access to the outside world is a worse thing. Yeah. How do we know it's not worse? It seems like it's worse.

There's more anxiety. There's more depression. Suicide is up. I mean, shit, man. It is a tough, it is a tough world. When you, when you grew up in, if somebody grew up and say, um, I'm trying to think of it, there's, there's bad now and i'm thinking about there's fucking bad shit going on all the time right you had world war one and world war two

um i mean fuck man there's there's not a it's hard to pick a good time you know you had vietnam you had you know people getting drafted that didn't want to get drafted um you know we've had a lot of hatred and a lot of racism and a lot of disgusting things uh slavery and we had we've had a lot of disgusting things happen in this country that they really can't uh do much about and you certainly can't do anything about like social media the internet yeah and all these things but just imagine you're nine years old and you post a picture with your friend and somebody is like, oh my God, you've been eating way too much. Look how fat you are. Yeah. And maybe even it was like a buddy and they said you were chubby or they worded a different way, but that's got to kill you.

Yeah. I mean, as an adult, it hurts, right? As an adult, it's like, fuck man, I wish that person didn't say that. That actually, I actually do have feelings that actually did hurt but as a kid how do you or or what are you doing hanging out with steven right why are you hanging out with him like oh he's weird or oh i didn't i didn't know you like i didn't know your uh they just anything yeah any little thing yeah any little thing they can a little thing they can find they say something negative it's like yeah i would want to go kill myself too it sounds terrible even as an adult when you can you can understand that and push it off to the side or

whatever but it still lives in the back of your brain yeah you know even on my social media somebody had said something i was like i would every fucking hater and then i was like damn it was it had to do with my bench the other day but uh you know it was an old friend of mine that i hadn't talked to in like 10 years and just popped up on my facebook and i was just like whatever dude and then i still thought about it and i was like ah okay i gotta forget about it so i can't even imagine as a kid like you know not understanding that like you can just overlook stuff yeah like fuck dude i couldn't imagine but perspective is perspective perspective is always crucial my parents always

taught me when i was young um before before anybody ever tried to hurt my feelings or anything my parents would talk to me about um hey you know different people have, you know, and different people have different upbringings. So just, just always understand that, you know, when you walk outside of these doors, there's different things going on outside. Yeah. There's, there's people that want to harm you. My mom would tell me these crazy things and I'm like, what the fuck is she talking about? She's like, she's like, there's people that will, they'll snatch up little kids and they'll take them. Yeah. And I was like, what, what the fuck are they doing? What do you mean? They snatch them up? Like, and then what the fuck do they do with them? But who are these people? Why are we

letting them out? Yeah. Yeah. She, she, you know, thank God she never told me like, why? Like I didn't, you know, I don't know that, you know, the details, but, um, she would explain that to me. And my dad would explain that to me. And they were like, Hey, you know, we choose to, and they, they were always good with their words. We choose to go to church and we do so as a family, we believe in the values that we're learning there. And we want you guys to believe in, in those same values. And this is the way you're being brought up, but there's other kids, you know, I'd say, Hey, you know, so-and-so, you know, he said something or he pushed my friend and I, you know, I don't understand what happened. And, uh, you know, I'd be all mad about it. I wanted to punch him or whatever. And my parents would say, Hey, look,

you know what? Um, you do what you think you need to do because yeah you do need to stand up for your friends that's a really good uh quality it's a good trait um but then you need to kind of figure out like you know what does that scenario kind of look like yeah but also just understand that that other kid might might not care he just might not care about much of anything uh when i was a kid and the principal came around i'd like you, you know, I tried to straighten up, you know, even though I probably wasn't doing anything wrong. If, if I was, uh, chewing gum or cussing or had my hat backwards, you know, I would change, I would change all that, even though having the hat backwards and chewing gum, wasn't something that we weren't allowed to do. I was just like, Oh, like, I don't want to get, I don't want to fucking stand out. I don't

want to get busted for anything. Right. And a lot of that probably had to do with my brothers they would get in they got in trouble a lot and uh i always wanted to kind of be i always wanted to like lay low but there's a lot of people that um maybe they have a stressful upbringing maybe maybe the kids abused maybe the kid's dad the kid's mom turned their back on the family and they're not there or the kids being raised by grandma or there's just so many things you have no idea what's going on the school never has time to make any sense of that or to figure anything of any of those things out and uh it always gave me good perspective So that guy that like made that comment on your thing, he,

it's an immediate, it's like an allergic reaction. You know, it's almost like he got poison Ivy and he just had to itch it, you know, like his fucking arm is red and he sees it and he knows it fucking itches and he had to scratch it. Right. Um, it's just a negative impulse that he got because he's not happy.

He's probably not exercising or he probably doesn't have, um, he probably doesn't have the opportunities that you've worked for that he, in his mind has placed as luck. He's kind of placed it in that category. Like, oh, Andrew's lucky, you know, or, you know, I know his, I know his, uh, dad, you know, did this. And so his dad probably helped him with that or right just what who the hell knows where yeah he knows where the guy's thinking right yeah oh his parents bought him that camera and then it was just you know then it was easy from

there and i never had my parents give me any hand you know it's like wait a second somebody helping with a camera is there anything worse than somebody playing the victim yeah that's the that's the absolute worst. I hate that shit. But that's what you can kind of revel in the fact, you know, you know that that's going on when somebody's trying to cut you down. It's like, it's literally to make themselves feel better. And this is something I kind of escaped a little earlier on. I forgot to kind of go back to it, but we need to do a better job of, of being kind to one another.

Somebody comes up to you and they're like, Hey man, guess what? As soon as they say, guess what? Be ready to be excited. Just get ready. Just get ready.

Fucking give, give them a hug. Give them a fucking fist bump. Give them a smile they're gonna say i'm going on a date tonight and the first thing we do as dudes is like oh yeah bro what's his name yeah you know and you could you could get around to that you could get around to some of those things but that person came to you for a reason. Like they, they just stoked about something. They just told you it for a reason.

They told you, they, they told you specifically, they, they chose you. You know, that's the way you should think about it, man.

This person just chose, uh, to tell me that he's going to celebrate his fifth wedding anniversary. And then rather than some weird, crazy sexual joke or whatever and i'm saying you could still get to those but just say andrew that's fucking awesome man that's that's super cool i'm i'm pumped for you guys right you know the only people that i've ever met that know how to do that parents are people that are smart people that are smart because being smart is a sign of being

strong what did my friend that came in here yesterday what was he full of yesterday when he came in here my friend steve dude uh so mark's buddy steve who you haven't seen in what like prop you know now that i thought about it was probably like eight or nine years so he he walked in and so we're giving him kind of like a quick tour of the whole facility here. And he's just like, he's vibrating. He's like so, like he can't even believe what's going on. He's like, dude, do you remember that like room of a gym you started in Woodland, you know, 10 years ago or whatever? He's like, look at all this.

He was so excited for you. It was very cool to see both of you guys just laughing and having a good time. And, uh, not one ounce of like, oh, well you got all this because this happened. Yeah. Or, you know, like, ah, if I would have stuck with you, you know, I would have been here too. He was just genuinely really, really happy for you. And it was fucking awesome. Yeah.

It was really cool. It just, for me, just to see that. The entire time he was here, he was really cool to just, for me, just to see that. The entire time he was here, he was full of compliments. Yeah. The entire time. Yeah. It was, it was hard.

It was hard for me to even, to even accept it. Um, just cause it, it, after a little bit, it makes you blush. It makes you feel awkward. You know, you're like, ah, shucks kind of thing. And you almost try to change the subject sometime, but you know, I I've learned over the years, cause thankfully I'm somebody that gets in a position of, uh, people complimenting me a lot, you know, on, on getting stronger or on being better shape. And so I, I am used to it. I learned to just look the person in the eye and say, thank you. I, that I appreciate that. Thank you so much. And I've learned just to take it on. That's all they, that's all somebody wants you to do is recognize, uh, kind of what they just said.

Yeah. But yeah, he came in here and he was so fired up and he was so excited and he was so blown away. uh, drive up here in some shit box car and have some shit job and have a job that he hates, a wife that he hates, a life that he hates. It would be really, really hard, right? Yeah. It would be really hard if he was the guy that was hanging with me in the beginning. And then he felt he never got the spotlight and he felt like, uh, he was deserving of being part of it in some way or, or, or whatever it might be. Right. It would be hard for that guy to come in here.

Now that I'm not saying it doesn't exist, but, um, you know, I, I don't want to, I don't want to, uh, say any of his business, but look, it's very obvious. That's a very successful person. Um, in every sense of the word, he he's, he has obviously figured life out because it's really hard to, to give out compliments when you don't feel good about yourself. You know, you think about, think about those days where you just, I mean, we all have these days where we just feel nasty. Yeah. We're just negative. Everything's negative. You're negative about, um, oh man,

my knee hurts. And then the whole, everything else is, is fucking shitty. I spilled my protein shake in the car and just, but you're not, you're not thinking properly. Your whole day is set off into this negative cascade. Um, but there's a lot of people they kind of they live their lives in that bubble um and i think everyone has this idea of like oh if i make more money than i'm gonna be i'm gonna be happy i'm gonna be fulfilled again think back to some of the things that this guy said when he was in here you know i just got back into working out about eight months ago and i'm starting to feel better i'm starting to feel good he's got three children he has he's just like the rest of us he's got bills he's got problems but he continually brought up the fact that he's working on doing more he continually brought up the fact that he's uh continuously working towards like doing better and being

better and i'm sure that he has it's taken him probably a long time to refine his life to get to that uh situation but it's very obvious to me that when you have somebody like that that can really throw out compliments like that yeah he's he's not he's not like you know he's not, he's not like, you know, he's not going to throw out a compliment to fish for one. He's not, he's not throwing out bait to get a bite and then have you compliment him back. He's just complimenting you just to compliment you because he's excited for you and he's strong inside. He feels good. He doesn't, he doesn't need that. Yeah.

Um, he didn't, he never once started talking about himself. He just kept talking about this. He kept talking about the business. And those are things that I think people really need to work on. So when somebody says something to you and they want to share something with you and, uh, it's important, be excited about it. Um, the other thing is, you know, know recognize it make sure that you're kind of calculating that it that it's substantial to that person right um and then also don't start talking about yourself you know um andrew hit this 205 bench the other day right so an easy way to deflate the 205 bench is to say like, is for me to all of a sudden turn it back to myself. And, but even, you know, even if I said, um, yeah, man, you know, it's, that's, that's so great.

What you just did that 205 bench and I even working hard for it. We broke the 200 pound barrier and now I can work on getting the two plates very easy conversation over right but uh it it changes the whole demo it changes everything if uh if i'm like man that's great you hit a pr i'm hitting prs while i'm dieting for this show too like what dude? Dude, what? You got to always have a fucking edge or you got to always throw something in there. But like, just shut the fuck up. It's like, I know you hit that 205 bench, but I have abs.

Yeah. And again, like I'm not saying, you know, don't have fun, you know. Right, right. Have your fun. Tease people, you know, because that's all a huge part of it, right? Yeah.

But next time you go to talk about yourself, when somebody just came to you with news, I want you to think of me because you're going to think of me a lot. You're going to be shocked at how often it happens and you're going to go to say something and you go, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And don't cut people off. That's just rude rude sometimes you know

when they're like super excited like oh my god dude you'll never guess what i did like hey by the way uh we just did this podcast and we got you know x amount of downloads and it's fucking awesome what were you saying like what you know yeah yeah and i think also just like not yeah not not uh not bullshitting anymore like uh you, if you are happy about something, don't, like, beat around the bush. You know, like, hey, so, you know, I was stuck at 185 for a while, and I finally benched more than that. Or, you know, even just as simple as, like, not lying to people. Like, how often, like, have you texted me or something, and I've been like, oh, fuck dude, I'm running late. Sorry.

Instead of, oh dude, I had to go get gas. My car broke down. This happened, that happened. It just keeps you honest and genuine. So when you do, you know, you speak to people, you don't have to think of what your story was. So if somebody is genuinely happy about something, be genuine right back.

I think that goes a long way along the same lines as just spreading love to everybody. Yeah. And on that same note, I don't need to know about your car. Yeah. You know, I don't need to know about these things unless you need help. Like my car broke down. Can you pick me up? Yeah.

Like, okay, I will to figure that out, you know? Um, but a lot of times, um, and I,

and I, I, I wish we captured some video of this. I, I'll type something to somebody and then delete. I'll type, delete, type,

delete. Yeah. Um, somebody might say, Hey man, I need you to call me today right away red flags are going up in your head you're like i don't have time for that i gotta i gotta train twice and i gotta all right that that right and you're just like um that person doesn't need first of all that person doesn't

need to know all those things it's irrelevant doesn't matter they have a lot of shit going on their lives too right you can very simply say even if you look at your day and you're like wow i'm i'm kind of fucked tomorrow but you can say uh you can just immediately fire back and say, Hey, what would be a good time for you? And they fire back and they say, uh, 12 o'clock.

And you can say, could, could you please text me at 11 or 1130 and, and just make sure, um, I, I do have a day where I'm, I'm bouncing back and forth between some things.

And, uh, yeah, I'd love to talk to you. Boom. Done. Done. But instead it's like, no, I got to take my kids to soccer practice and then I got to

pick up my nephew and you just dumped all this stuff on everybody else and, and you're regurgitating it. Like when you regurgitate, think about that word. When you regurgitate something, you still taste it. You taste it again for a second time and it tastes disgusting right yeah burping up something you don't want to regurgitate stuff there's no you just you just took like a buried stress and you brought it right to the surface and now it's like it's like right in front of you as like a giant blockade yeah you don't need all

that shit in front of you you need to just out, you need to just try to problem solve. Somebody says, Hey, I need to get with you for today, or I need to have a meeting today. And you could actually say, you know, something along the lines and, and there's people that are better at this than, than I am, um, in terms of, uh, being able to negotiate and getting into the psyche of people's mind. of, uh, being able to negotiate and getting into the psyche of people's mind, you can say, um, you know, tomorrow, tomorrow would be, would be better for that because sometimes, uh, as I was mentioned earlier, you have to save, you have to save some stuff. We can't, we can't go to failure on everything. Um, if you go to failure on everything that you're working on, if Andrew's here blasting away on the podcast and on photos, again, when he goes home, he's still going to be here.

His mind is still going to be here. If he worked for an hour, hour and a half, took some lunch, came back in here, closed his eyes, fucking meditated. All right, back to work. Boom, cranks out another hour, looks at it and it's like, I could probably, you know, get through one more hour of work. And then after that, I'm, I need to train and I need to get my ass back home, but I need to recover from the workout so that when I come home, I'm not bringing work home with me and I'm not still in that same frame of mind. It's almost like you need to kind of prep yourself for everything that you're about to do. There are some cultures where when they put the food in front of them, you know, they

don't have like a table, right? They're like sitting down, they got the legs crossed and they're sitting a certain way and they're sitting in this upright posture. And some, uh, some cultures will pray, you know, they're thankful for the food. They're starting to think about what they're going to do and that they're going to enjoy this food together. Um, would that help you absorb the food better? I'd say, fuck.

Yeah. Even if there's not any science to back it up. The fact that you took a second to breathe and you're like, I'm going to, I'm going to enjoy this meat and these noodles and whatever else is, you know, accompanied with all these things, a glass of wine. And we're amongst friends. I'm going to enjoy all this food. I'm going to take my time to eat it. Cause this is going to be fun.

Yeah. I'm going to chew all my food up the way you're supposed to. And, uh, this is going to be, it's almost like when you go to get a massage, right? You go to get a massage.

They put on like certain music, they get a certain smelly stuff in there. But even before all that, you like, you schedule it. So, you know, from three to four,

whatever it is, you know, like, okay, I'm shutting down for that time. So you really enjoy it. You, you know, from three to four, whatever it is, you know, like, okay, I'm shutting down for that time. So, you really enjoy it. You're very, you're very prepared for it.

Yeah, there you go. Yeah. Prepared for it. Yeah. Yeah. That's huge. Back to this bench. Okay.

So, I know some people are listening like two or five bench, bro. He could do more than that. Why isn't he on trend? Yeah. Why am i not on trend um what are some of the things you heard as a kid that that still that still kind of sit in your body you know you said skinny yeah uh shit i remember uh you know just as as uh friends you know everybody kind of will either play fight or push or step up to somebody, whatever. I remember a buddy of mine, they were going at it or whatever. He's like, why don't you pick on him? He's scrawny.

I'm just like, what? What does that mean? I was skinny, but I didn't really understand that I looked different than everybody else because of how skinny I was. That was one thing. And that was in junior high, so you can imagine you're developing at that age. What about wearing certain clothes and stuff? Were you maybe shy to wear a tank top or a sleeveless shirt or even a tight short-sleeved shirt because your arms weren't significant enough? Yeah, 100%.

Growing up, I didn't really have a lot of friends that I hung out with just because being a big Mexican family, we had cousins everywhere. So I was really close to all my cousins. And my cousin Eddie, he's always – well, I actually have two cousin Eddies. Both of them were in pretty good shape. And I remember they would wear tank tops and stuff. well i actually have two cousin eddies um both of them were like in pretty good shape and i remember they would wear tank tops and stuff and my mom would be like why don't you wear like tank tops like your cousins just be like i'd like i would look in the mirror and i'd be like even as a like

like elementary school kid being like i look different than them you know like and it was uncomfortable so i never i never wore tank tops or anything that showed anything off um so that was always weird but okay well this is the this is the kicker right here um i love my dad very close to him um i would consider my dad a best friend of mine but i remember i was walking with my shirt off next to my cousin eddie oh no and then my other cousin eddie was there too they had been i don't know if they were working out or they were just strong you know like whatever and i remember hearing my dad say oh look at like look at eddie like he looks great oh even the other eddie looks great and i remember him saying look at ours he sucks oh and well he's just trying to like kid you or what do you think no he didn't know i could

hear him oh okay so i i had held that like deep inside for a really long time even then i didn't really understand it like my feelings weren't hurt or anything and don't get me wrong like i said i love my dad i'm really close to him but sometimes the people we love the most hurt us the worst they don't even mean it sometimes yeah and again like he probably doesn't even know that i hurt him but i remember hearing that and being like oh i guess i'm skinny you know what i mean and so i don't want to say like that is what set the domino effect of you know the rest of my life of like not wanting to train or whatever but i, I just know that that affected me in a weird way and I could never really break out of being skinny. I think, uh, one thing too about, you know, being like thinner, um, that's hard is I, I think that, you know, when, when, when a kid is real heavy, um, you know, there's, there's a few, a few ways that people go about it.

They're like, okay, well, kids is bigger than some of the other kids. And sometimes that's legitimately the case. Sometimes the kid's just bigger. And then sometimes it's like the kid has bad habits because the parents have bad habits and so on. And I think most people could probably recognize, recognize hey this kid could probably use some help when it comes to exercise when it comes to diet um and i think i think people understand like yeah we could figure out a way for that kid to lose some weight um but trying to mess with that too much at a young age yeah uh seems intrus, uh, it seems a little scary to everybody.

Maybe the kid doesn't want to make changes. Maybe the parents are happy with the kid and the kids have, you know, just cause somebody has a few extra LBs on them doesn't mean that they're not living a happy, fun life that they like, that they enjoy. And maybe they're getting to, you know, enjoy life to the fullest and some, some extent, but at least, at least when you're heavy, you have an understanding of, yeah, we could figure out a way to lose less. We could figure out a way to, to weigh less.

Uh, but that's not our focus right now. We don't, don't really care, or we're going to worry about it when he turns, when he's a little older or whatever. A lot of those things are just excuses. And he's still a kid. He can figure it out. Yeah. Yeah.

It's still not a great way to go about doing it, but you can at least understand some of the rationale behind some of it, you know? Yeah. When it comes to being skinny, I think that you maybe don't really recognize that you can make changes. And I think when, when people are skinnier than other people,

they, and people do this when they're heavy too. But, uh, most of the time with a younger person, you're not really going to hear a younger person say, I can't lose weight. Um, usually that's when you're older and you've tried and you lost weight and you gained it back. I have a hard time losing weight. The word can't is a, is a really not a great word, uh, but it's a word that we attach to protect ourselves. And, uh, you hear people say, um, you say, oh, really? Like, what have you tried? I've tried everything. And it's like, okay, well, actually that, that is mathematically impossible for on many different reasons. because you're not old enough to have tried everything you'd have to be you know nine million years old in order to have tried everything um uh but also if you tried everything then you would at some point you'd end up the result

looking for um you must have tried everything and stopped you must have tried everything and gave up you must have tried everything and quit yeah um i think when it comes to being thin though, I don't think you really understand the options that are there for you to gain weight and for you to be more significant. I do think that people know they can lift, but lifting like, man, it's a, it takes time. It takes time, you know, lifting or going to like boxing or some of those kinds of things like, yeah, your arms can firm up a little bit and you can look, you can start to look a little bit better, but it's more like, hey, you know, you, you got about, you got about two, three years of, you know, kind of putting in a bunch before you really

look like you even did anything, you know? So it's, uh, it can be a time consuming endeavor. And then most of the people that you're around, they don't really know what would be best to have you look great because actually at that age, if you're anywhere between, let's say 12 and, uh, like 18, anywhere between 12 and 18 in six months, you can lift. And you, if you ate properly, you'd look like a goddamn machine. I mean, you would make some really impressive transformation, but you would need somebody that has been doing it for 20 or 30 years to kind of coach you through that. Hey man, you need to, you need to lift.

You need to lift hard for 30, 40 minutes. You need to get out of the gym and you need to eat. Yeah. You know, you'd have to have someone really coat. You need to sleep. We need to get you to sleep, man. You're, you're skinny because you're waking up late. You're not getting in enough meals and all these things.

And you, again, back to the, I can't, I've heard so many people over the years and say, man, I just, I can't, I can't gain any weight. And it's like, that's actually not true. Um, you, maybe you have a little harder time gaining weight. Maybe you, it, maybe it appears that you eat the same, the same types of food that other people eat and you're just not gaining as fast or you're not maintaining as fast as they are. Uh, but you can gain weight you can lose weight and that's i mean it's uh

it's gonna be there'd be some sort of insane metabolic situation where where you literally could not gain weight you know but by then i would have been diagnosed by a doctor or something you know yeah you would have been sick probably or something you know yeah but so like even with that i i didn't have anybody to tell me, you know, what to eat or how to train or how to, or even what to train. My older brother, he's seven years older than me. He was always pretty big. Um, he, he could develop muscle if he tried and, uh, he was very athletic, but it came

easy to him. Um, so when it came to me, like, I don't know, it just didn't happen for me. And then my dad was very athletic as well, and it came easy to him. So I don't know if they just thought it would click one day and I would get big or they just didn't care. But I was never coached by, like, anybody in my family, like what to eat or how to train. Yeah. And maybe it just appeared that it became easy to them. That is 100% true too.

Yeah. It could have been like, uh, again, all these things are to protect yourself. You know, like the truth always hurts. Right. Yeah. And you don't want to just think, oh man, like they, they worked hard for it and they got it. And, uh, I, I don't, i'm not well i'm not willing to uh

i'm not a hard worker i'm not going to do it like it's hard just to say that you know it's hard just to flat out yeah my um my sister-in-law a while back she said when i started this diet she said uh she said congratulations to you for being able to do it she said uh she just said i would have a really really hard time like making that she goes i understand that i probably could figure out a way to do it um she's like but like right now even just thinking about it she's like it just seems like it'd be way too hard for me to implement any of that and like my lifestyle i wasn't even trying to get her to do it but i thought that that her again rationale behind it uh was smart it was a smart she she was saying like that's great that you're doing that and that's great that you're you're going to make tremendous progress and probably fulfill a lot of these hopes and dreams that you have

with that um but she's kind of also saying like, not that she can't do it. She's just saying like, man, it wouldn't be very reasonable or rational for me to think that I could jump into that right now. Oh, okay. Yeah. And on the flip side of that, I had a kid at the grocery store the other day and I bought like, you know, broccoli and spinach and kale and chicken breast and steak and salmon and just had this thing fucking to the max with tons of great food. And, uh, you know, as I was leaving, you know, at, at nugget, they help you to your car all the time. And this kid's helped me to the car. And he's like, uh, when's the last time you had a, like, you know, a fast food. And I said, no, I don't know. It's been a while. Um, I said, I know I've been like in and out burger in the last year or

so. Um, I've been to a McDonald's here and there and, uh, over the last several years, but I said, I'm not really, I don't really, you know, I don't really eat, I don't really eat fast food. I don't really. And, uh, he just kind of shook his head and he was like, I can't ever do that. And I said, I said, actually you can do it. And, uh, the more that you do it, the more that you practice it, the easier it becomes. Yeah. It just takes time, you know, for you to think that you're going to jump all in and, and be able to master it right away. Uh, it's foolish. I'm not going to go over to Uriah Faber's gym and be able to beat up anybody over there. Probably at least I hope not.

Right. Like if, like if they're training hard and they're doing things the right way, um, I don't know, maybe I can sneak in a lucky punch on somebody or something, but for the most part, those guys are professional fighters and they should be able to kick me in the legs a couple of times, watch me get tired, laugh at me, then tie me up like a pretzel and break my ankle or something. Right. Yeah. If you can tap one of them, then we got bigger issues in Sacramento. Yeah.

Yeah. Then there's a lot of problems going on over there. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, so it's, it's always foolish to think that you're going to, uh, all of a sudden, you know, walk into any scenario and be great at it right away. I was training with my dad this morning. He's on day five in a row of getting after it. And he was lifting some weights today.

And he's doing some of these funny, weird movements. But I'm just encouraging him. I'm just like, hey, man, he's moving, you know. Yeah. And he's, you know, kind of moving the dumbbells in like a quote unquote wrong way or whatever. Um, but they're light enough. He's not, you know, not going to injure himself and I'm watching him and stuff. And he goes, yeah, yeah.

He's like, so I did some of these and he's showing me, he's like, but I only, I only use the 10. I only use the 10 pounds. And I was like, dad, don't do that to yourself. He's like, what? He's like, I shouldn't do these exercises do these exercises i said no don't say only there's no reason there's no reason to say only that's not only you that's what you just did that's fine yeah and 10 pounds is kind of a lot of weight on some of these exercises like he doesn't understand uh he doesn't know how to like tone it

down at all you know he he's walking at like 3.5 miles an hour on the treadmill and stuff. And I'm telling him, Hey man, let's, let's see if we can go two miles an hour. Yeah. You know, he's in there going full, full blast, which is great. The mindset, the mindset is great. Yeah. Um, but you know, see if, you know, as, as you're working on yourself and as you're working on personal development, and as you're thinking of some of the things I mentioned today of, of, uh, being more kind,

try not to talk about yourself when somebody is talking about themselves, um, try to be more positive. Um, also, you know, just, just, uh, you know, try to consider some of these things that I'm talking about today and try to eliminate some words from your life. Can't, you know, try to consider some of these things that I'm talking about today and try to eliminate some words from your life. Can't, you know, instead of can't, I haven't tried that yet. Yeah. Oh, wow. I'd love to be able to do that someday. That, that, wow. You, you know how to surf? Shit, man. I, I, I never got around to try and surfing, but it seems like it would be tough. It seemed like it'd be really hard. I don't know if I even want to try it. That's so different than saying can't. Yeah.

Get rid of can't, get rid of just, you know, um, hey, what'd you do this weekend? Oh, I just hung around with my family. It doesn't have to be just, no, you hung around with your family. That's fucking great. Yeah. Had a blast with my family. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. We, yeah, we got to hang out. We, you can, you can word it whatever way you want, but you don't need to throw in those words that kind of deflate or take away from what it is that you did. Yeah. And, like, it happened yesterday, but when you had texts like, hey, do you want a podcast? And I, instead of saying yes or no, I just responded with, yeah, we absolutely can. But just remember, we got this thing at two o'clock, so we got to get in and out by this time and dah, dah, dah. And I'm like, wait, sorry, that's not what you asked. The answer is yes,

as long as we can get out by this time. You know, it's just, it's totally different than me saying all that. I could have just said, as long as we finished by this time. Yeah. Cause you were probably like, dude, that's what are you talking about so anyway we're we're about to train right now and um you know andrew and i i mentioned this many times on the podcast you know um people get excited and i'll be like man it's great you're helping other people and you know you're thankful that you're helping me, but you're helping me a ton. Um, don't ever get that twisted in your mind that, that it's a, that it, that it should be a two way street all the time. Um, you know, I, I might not do the same tasks that other people in here do. Um, but I am willing to do anything and everything

I can to make sure that things in here are better. Um, I might not go into the break room and like throw out the garbage, although I'm not above that. I don't, I can no problem doing any of that. No problem. Uh, you know, clean this up off, off the floor or whatever. Right. Yeah. I've seen him do it. So he's not bullshitting. Yeah. I don't, I don't have, I don't have an issue with that. Um, but I also recognize that that's kind of a waste of my time and that's not being a dick. That's just trying to keep my mind where it needs to be. And my mind needs to be on being creative. My mind needs to be on relationships.

Those are really kind of like the two things, um, that I need to, uh, that I need to understand. And so my mind is more around, uh, how do I create more opportunity for the people that are working for me? Um, you know, there's, as you, as you start to build a company and, uh remember talking to my father-in-law one time, and he was talking about some of the things Donald Trump was going to do when he became president and stuff. And he was like, oh, he's got this small business tax thing, and it could help you guys. And I was like, small business? I'm like, fuck fuck that you know what i mean like but uh yeah you know here in america small business is defined by under 250 million dollars and i didn't know i didn't know that and i'm sure that number is sliding and it moves around

a lot so it could be it could be different uh and uh he laughed and he was like no no no i i he goes i understand you guys are doing really well, but, uh, just so you know, a small business is, uh, you know, anything less than $250 million. I go, oh, okay. I would be in the small business, uh, uh, uh, category, but you know, if you're not, if you're not trying to grow, you're not trying to expand. Then in my opinion, you're ceasing to become smaller. You're ceasing to become less significant.

And what I want to do with this company is I want the company to thrive. I want the company to continue to put more points up on the scoreboard, to continue to break sales records, to continue to expand our growth globally, not just here in the United States, to continue to figure out how to provide more value to our customers, how to provide better products for our customers. You see it all the time. We're working on every detail that possible for a fucking shaker cup. Yeah. Sounds ridiculous. Right. But that's the job we're working on.

Every detail we can think of with shorts. We're like, Hey, let's make these shorts. Let's do this. And let's do that. And then we go over something towards the end and we're like, shit, man, I don't like shorts that don't have pockets. We need to have pockets on those bitches. Cause where do we put our stuff?

Like it's a, I don't know about you, but I've actually worn shorts before where I forget something because I didn't have my pocket, you know, and I go to my car, I don't have my keys. Yeah.

I go to my car, I don't have my phone. I'm like, shit, man. And it's because you don't have the extra spot to, to put it in. And we're trying to think of every single detail.

But the reason for all that is, you know, I could sit here and keep the business at a certain level and sit there and count my money and buy more cars and enjoy more fun things with myself and my kids and my parents and stuff like that. But that's not what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to create a community. That's not what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to create a community. I'm trying to create a team. I don't want to just have a media team.

I want to have the best media team. I want recognition. I want for our media team to be substantial. I want them to be significant, not just in the fitness industry. I want other people to take note and I want other people to look and go. Maybe let's say it's like bulletproof coffee right dave asprey's company or maybe it's tim ferris or maybe it's somebody who's like not in our normal even though we know those guys um but people that are not in our normal circle going oh shit like these guys are what are they doing yeah they got this uh

they got this great media campaign going on. They got great commercials. They got great, this great, that they got fun content and they're kicking ass in the gym and they're training hard and people are getting in shape. People are getting, I could, I could sit here and hoard the money for myself. Um, and obviously of course, uh, I'm in it to prosper myself as well. Like what a foolish thing to, to not admit, right. I want to keep kicking ass. There's hopes and dreams that I have, uh, that I can reach. But a lot of these things are inclusive of a lot of other people. They're

not just for myself. And I think that sometimes somebody gets the company to 700,000 or a million or those numbers and they start to feel really good about it. And like, I'm just going to kind of hang out right here and I could, I could keep the overhead low. I don't need a warehouse. I don't need to hire anybody, you know? And it's like, wow, you start to really think about that. And you're like, that's kind of cool, but it'd actually be great if you hired a few people. Yeah. Like, um, we were talking the other day about, uh, some of the employees here, seeing them being able to get a new car. Not everyone's going out and getting a 2019, uh, SUV or whatever.

Right. Not everyone's get, uh, rolling around in a ghost, right. From Rolls Royce. Right. uh rolling around in a ghost right from rolls royce right it's not anything like that but it but it's just the fact that people have three thousand bucks six thousand bucks five thousand bucks to maybe get that uh next level car that they wanted rather than buying something that they're like oh it's gonna last for six months and they got the fingers crossed right yeah yeah a little shit box.

Yeah. We've seen it. We've seen it more and more, uh, with, uh, you know, people kind of climbing that ladder and something I'm actually looking at right now.

And I have no idea that this will work out, but it seems like it will work out in, uh, just down the street from my house. There's this, um, 22 acre, uh,

lot that has a house on it. the house looks really nice i haven't checked out the house yet we haven't even looked into any of the details yet but i'm mentioning this because this is kind of the hopes and dreams of being able to pile everything in now we just moved into this spot i don't even know if we've been here for a year yet no it's getting close to us being in here for a year, but we signed a five-year lease. And so part of, um, you know, part of getting ahead is to be ahead. Part of getting ahead is to plan ahead. And so as I fast forward five years from now, or four years from now, when this lease is up, uh, Jake will be 19, 18 and a half, 19 years old. Uh, Quinn, my daughter, she will be, uh,

about 14. So she'll be getting closer to driving. Jake will be in and out of the house a lot. He'll either, well, who knows what we'll be doing, but he will probably most likely like have a job or be trying to go to school or like he'll be trying to do something he probably won't be around as much he'll be hanging out with his buddies or uh selling that crack cocaine on the streets of uh east sacramento if we raise him right yeah yeah yeah he's got to make his money right but uh so so the kids you know they they won't be at home as much right they'll be right around other people and and things like that so in in terms of like and the reason why i'm bringing that up is

because where my kids live it matters because i have friends that are close to them uh this place i was looking at it's not that much further but it is more like in the country. But this 22 acre lot, I can build and put anything that I want on it. It's just outside of Yolo County. Yolo County has tons of rules. Davis has tons of rules. This is actually just barely in Dixon. It's like literally a few thousand feet into Dixon. But on paper, it kind of looks perfect. I'm like, I could have

like a, uh, like a, I can have like a mini golf setup thing out there. I could have archery. I was going to say we just need a range. Yeah. I could have a shooting range. Um, I mean, we could have all kinds of things. We can have multiple homes on a location. We could have a, um, you know, right now we're in about a 23,000 square foot spot. I can make like a 40,000 square foot spot that has, you know, enough room and the capacity for, um, a podcast studio, a, uh, photography studio. Um, but it could just be from start to finish set up a hundred percent of, of the way that we want and need to have it set up, uh, you know, from the very beginning. I mean, the podcast studio could have, uh, you know, it could just be set up from the very beginning. I mean, this one

is arranged really nicely, but we could, you know know when you start from scratch and build things custom you can kind of get into uh doing any and everything yeah that you want you know and it does change the dynamics of yeah we're in west sacramento and there's some people around and stuff but as i thought about it it's like this place isn't like you know this this place doesn't have like foot traffic yeah you know what i mean and uh i think that no matter where we're at we'll never have a shortage of attention we'll never have a shortage of people uh coming to the area so it's just something i was thinking of but i was like man that would be sick to have like a compound you know yeah it would it could be something uh

you know really incredible and really amazing, but what does that do? So back to what I was originally talking about, what that does is this place is expensive. This place costs like 15 K or more a month. Well, what though there would obviously be other expenses involved with building something, right? something right uh but it would cost a lot less to build something and to have full ownership of it than it would to try to build something out here where the zoning is different it would cost four or five six million dollars maybe even more like eight or ten million dollars to try to figure out anything here but to do something on that property yeah would cost a few hundred thousand dollars and it'd be done and i'd own it forever so those are some of the things i'm exploring and then again back to originally said

there would be more funds to spread around easier and to create and to do the things that we want to do uh there's a lot of things to think about when you think about all that stuff but that is how i have built the business that I've built. That's how I've gotten into the position that I've gotten into. It's always been to kind of like, Oh shit. What's you know, what's next? Okay. We're here.

What's next? Okay. You know, I made the X sleeves. X sleeves are fucking dope. People are going to love those, but what do I got to do next? You know, what, what's the next move where's where's olympic lifting going where's power lifting going where's fitness going you know and and those are those that kind of those kind of moves are priceless they're hard to

moving into midtown strength conditioning was probably one of the strongest moves i ever made business-wise because I, when I went there, I only paid 600 bucks a month and it also allowed me to, um, get outside the gym and allowed me to, to kind of work on some other things. So anyway, we got to bring this bitch to a close. We got to get some training in the next time that we hop on here, we will get a little bit more detailed about goal setting, which was that was a question that popped up on one of the previous podcasts, right? Yeah. Yeah. It was just somebody basically asking, how do we even set goals?

You know, well, they were asking you, but I thought it was a good question. And I had responded to him like, you know, that's a great question. I don't want to ask at the end of this podcast. I want to devote an entire podcast to it. And not that I'm upset that we didn't even cover it today, but these are the best ones that we just kind of just chit-chat about whatever. So, yeah, we'll follow this one up with a whole other podcast, just kind of discussing goals and how to set them.

I will just say this just quickly, you know, back to the scenario that i mentioned about like not jumping off the diving board you know um i mean sometimes there is there is you know there's some you see see a good opportunity sometimes you got to jump on it yeah but i've always done things pretty slowly and pretty uh like meticulously i've always kind of like chose the harder path and part of the reason for the harder path is you can feel out the resistance first and you can say that's that's a lot of resistance so even with running i ran for a few weeks and it didn't feel good to me

you know i i it start like i had like that weird chest pain thing was going on oh yeah i have no idea if that was related to they checked my heart my heart was okay but i think because the amount of breathing i wasn't used to it it was just really taxing on me i've never been in a position like that where i've run that much before in my life and so it was too demanding i checked the resistance and I checked myself and I said, it would be fun to get into that, but now it's not the right time. You know, I'm going to move on to doing something a little different, something else. And then the, you know, the opportunity for the bodybuilding thing, uh, kind of came along and I was already

close enough, um, to have that be a more reasonable goal. I was like, yeah, you know, if I, I was just thinking like at that time, I'm like, if I lost 10 pounds of fat, I'd probably, you know, look good enough to be on stage. So I think a big part of that, and, and then we'll talk about it in depth, uh, next time we'll get way into it um but i think a big part of it is to have the goal be fairly close and as i mentioned a million times here on the podcast before i don't really believe in in in goals necessarily um i believe more in having like a checklist because a checklist has a box next to it and it has the intention of that motherfucker is going

to get checked off at some point yeah like maybe i didn't get to it today or maybe i couldn't quite get to it tomorrow but it's going to be checked off the list and so for you um a a thing you would check off the list is 205 right like okay bench over 200 pounds bing done right yeah and now the next goal is to get to two plates but we don't have to really we don't have to worry a ton about when it's just there and has an empty box next to it and the check mark is ready to be inserted into there uh whenever that time comes we don't need to we don't need to uh worry about it because if we worry about it too much and we start striving towards just that, we're going to lose out on some other things. So you want to, you want to be able to have this checklist that keeps making you feel really good. You know,

my goal for today is to get a haircut. My goal for today is to to it's things that you kind of want to do it's things that you kind of need to do um but it's not necessarily things you have to do so like taking a shit can't be a goal because you have to take a shit every day eating can't be a goal because you have to eat every so but like eating less can be a goal yeah i want to work on eating a little bit less than i have been in the past i I want to weigh less. Just little things like that. Yeah. Real quick.

Listener, Eric Herman. He just wanted to thank you because he was, he was actually addicted to heroin for five years. He started watching you on YouTube and he learned about lifting, learned about Kratom and now he's clean. I just wanted to bring that up because that's fucking amazing. That's awesome. Did he say how long he's been clean for uh he didn't say that but he said he was addicted for

five years wow so yeah dude holy shit that's wild i mean when people tell i i don't even understand how to respond to that like people tell me stuff like that it's really uh that that's um that's a big deal you know to be to go from that. So congratulations on being able to, you know, being able to change, you know, what a habit that most people don't think you could ever dig yourself out of it. That's, uh, that's really an incredible thing. And you should feel good about that. Hopefully, um, hopefully you wake up every day feeling good about it. Like, you know, don't let that, don't let that feeling wear off.

Cause a lot of times, you know, you get a good feeling about something like, oh, I'm heading in the right direction. The kind of feeling kind of, it starts to, it starts to wear off. You should feel really good about it. You should feel like you have a whole new lease on life, you know? Yeah. And then Dan Hempton was asking if we're going to release our bodybuilding diet. I thought that was funny. Bodybuilding diet. That might be fun. Yeah. We'll,

um, we'll go over all that stuff. I mean, just, I can just tell you quickly, um, you know, keep in mind that when I started this, I was about 245. Um, I was at 350 grams of protein. I was at, uh, about 150 grams of carbs a day. And I was at about 75 grams of fat per day. Um, carb sources, rice, oats, potatoes, um, anything goes in terms of vegetables. You can eat any amount of vegetables I wanted to. Fruit was not an option. This is all just stuff that, you know, Hani Rambod helped, helped me with. Yeah. Uh, proteins, you can try to find leaner sources of protein because you're only allowed to have 75 grams of fat in a day and i i don't recommend that you take these same numbers and just apply it you know apply them to your own body weight

and try to figure out uh what these look like in reference to me saying i weighed 245 when i started um i'm trying to think uh yeah protein sources are lean sources, chicken, turkey. I don't like turkey, so I don't eat it. If you're not getting on stage for a bodybuilding show, you can have some condiments and things like that. But I don't like to rely on them too much. Years ago, when I did a bodybuilding style diet, I utilized a lot of mustard. And the mustard, you know, I don't know, and and the mustard you know i don't know some people like it some people don't but i would start mixing mustard into all kinds of stuff fucking tasted great yeah i started cooking it in with uh cooking it into some chicken and some

rice and things like that it was fantastic just always read the food labels always check all that stuff out and you know make sure there's not a lot of extra extra junk in there you want to kind of try to keep that ingredient uh you keep that ingredient list low you know low but but lastly you know in terms of diet always make sure that you're going from where you're currently starting from into a better position. So don't, you know, don't, uh, don't worry so much about like diving in all full force and all full blast. It's going to take you, it's going to take you a few weeks even to figure out how to shop for all this stuff.

It's going to take you a few months and even figuring out what you digest. Um, eggs are a great source. Um, I just kind of popped in my head, a great protein source, and you can do hard boiled eggs and there's a lot of options you can do with all that stuff. Um, but it's going to take you a long time to even just get used to any of it. So don't be afraid to take your time with it. There's, you know, you don't have to be in shape. I think it's a big mistake to say, I'm going to be in shape by this time.

Um, you could set some body weight goals for the end of the month and things like that. But, um, I just, I just think people need to get used to, uh, changing the types of foods that they eat. You're changing out, going to McDonald's. You're changing out not having lunch planned, being starving, and then just dying to want to go eat somewhere with having a prepared meal that you're going to eat, even if you're still craving something different. And you also, on top of all those things, fuel yourself enough, fuel yourself enough to the point where you don't really have cravings. So in the beginning of any diet, don't have a caloric restriction unless you are a veteran dieter.

Don't have a caloric restriction. Worry about eating less at some other point, but go like two weeks, maybe in a full month of just taking in better nutrition and not really worrying so much about the caloric intake. That's all I got, man. Time to go train some back strength is never a weakness. Weakness is never strength. Thank you. Thank you for watching Mark Bell's power project. Guys, we could use your help. Make sure you share this with other people. Make sure you tell other people about other people make sure you tell other people about it make sure you tell other people that you enjoy the power project and uh give us a review on itunes we are going to start to periodically randomly select people that are giving back to us people that are commenting on there and we're going to start sending out free shit when we start sending

out free shit to you um i'm not just talking about we're going to send you one pair of wrist wraps or something like that. We're going to send you out some really cool stuff. We're going to send you out some protein powder, some wrist wraps, a slingshot. I mean, it's going to be substantial. So the people that are doing that, taking the time to give us those reviews and taking time to share us with other people, we want to start giving back to you. That's all we ask. We don't advertise stuff on here. You do see, I got a little product up here, but, um, I could easily, uh, take on a lot of advertising from different companies and stuff like that. And I could easily

run commercials for slingshot, uh, all day long, but we don't, we don't do a lot of that stuff. Uh, this is just to provide you guys with information and to empower you guys. You guys can be stronger each and every day. We do have a code associated with the podcast that I actually always forget about, which is... It's PowerProject at checkout for 15% off all slingshots. 15% off all slingshots. That ain't a bad deal. Yeah. If you want to tell somebody about the PowerProject, if they're interested in a slingshot, just tell them, Hey,

use code power project. Like, what's that all about? Well, it's funny you ask. Yeah. Hey, that's interesting.

You should bring it up. But yeah, you know, we're just trying to spread the word, man. We put a lot of time. We put a lot of effort. We put a lot of finances and resources behind this.

And, uh, we try to give it everything we got each and every time we hop on here. Going to go hit up some back and catch you guys later.